Bora_Ring

The first stanza is about how the Aboriginal culture has been lost because of the invasion by the Europeans. It tells us that the rituals, tribal stories and the memories of the Aborigines are gone ‘lost in an alien tale’ implying that the Europeans were the aliens. It also suggests that once the Aborigines had been invaded, they were forgotten. The second stanza tells us about what’s been left behind after the Aborigines were gone. The use of personification allows Wright to emphasise the loss and makes the reader feel guilt and the realisation of what happened. The third stanza explains that there’s evidence of people being there, but Wright emphasises that they are gone, everything is gone. It allows us to visualise people being there before, but that now everything is gone. The final stanza is very powerful because Wright brings the reader into the poem. She does this by using a certain metaphor, which is ‘the fear as old as Cain’ and is a biblical reference to Cain. She compares the Europeans to Cain, saying that they have killed their ‘brothers’ like Cain killed his own brother, Abel. The alliteration ‘mark, mime, murmur’ is quite a soft sound to describe where the rituals once happened but the only thing left is sadness. ‘Sightless shadow, spear splintered,’ creates an image of a crushed culture with strong, harsh sounds. ‘Fastens fear’ is quite a strong sound to emphasise heavy guilt. The use of assonance of the letter ‘o’, allows the poem to create a sombre atmosphere, using words like, ‘gone’, ‘lost’, ‘broken’, ‘forgot’, ‘blood’, etc. The negative vocabulary also creates a negative tone to really express the seriousness of what Wright is saying. The negative vocabulary creates pessimistic imagery, for the reader to really understand what Wright is saying. This is especially made evident in stanza three where you picture the Aborigines’ being there and then being gone and in the last stanza with the reference to Cain.